This time of the year in Indiana is strawberry season. The strawberries all become ripe at the same time and you have to be able to pick the strawberries and use them while they are ripe, eat them quickly or can them or they will not keep. Without enough labor and effort, the window of time passes quickly and the proceeds of the land are not captured.
This urgency of timing is what Jesus is referencing when he says: “The harvest is great but the laborers are few.” In the ancient world a harvest of wheat or other crops came once a year and there were not combine harvester machines back then to gather all that the earth produced.
Since a crop like wheat provides a significant part of diet and economic livelihood, the timing of collecting the harvest is of great urgency. Receiving the returns of much work requires everything to come together with enough laborers to harvest. You can picture the excitement of a great harvest, with the right amount of energy expenditure a high percentage of the crop can be preserved, and with a poor effort much could be lost.
So it is with the harvest in God’s kingdom. The riches of God’s word are vast and limitless, we treasure the word in our life as the church as we learn more and more about the meaning of God’s Word. We know the Word of God has the power for the great gains and the timing is very sensitive as Jesus is coming soon and the time to labor and harvest will at that time be past. The conditions are ripe, all that is needed is enough laborers in the harvest field.
Sometimes we convince ourselves that the unbelieving world that walks in darkness are having all of the fun, that they are living it up while we as Christians make sacrifice and settle for simple lives following God’s law. There are always those times when the wicked seem to prosper because they are of the world and love the world.
But we should not forget that those who walk in darkness are without the light of Christ, although they may fit in with the world, they are fitting in with the emptiness of the world, their need is great, and the power God’s Word has to bring life and hope to those in darkness is great. The emptiness of our society provides conditions that are ripe for the work of God’s Word.
Certainly today we can see that our nation, is drowning in an epidemic of selfishness and rejection of God’s order in daily life. People do what is right in their own eyes. People are lost in their sin walking in darkness, and do not understand or know the light of Christ. We heard in our gospel lesson how Jesus saw that the people are clearly lost, like sheep without a shepherd. Jesus has compassion on those who walk in darkness, Jesus knows how empty their lives are without his fullness.
The Collect of the Day asks for faith to believe God’s promises that we may receive eternal salvation. This is language about how the harvest works. We take on the role of harvesters because we believe God’s promises. Our faith in Jesus is what allows us to collect any harvest. Without this trust in Jesus, we can do no harvesting for God’s kingdom. The work all revolves around our trust in our Savior, our faith in God’s Word.
The workers are few because there are many without faith or with a stunted faith. Many are called, few are chosen. Those who are indifferent in their faith or doubting are not qualified for the job. The influences of the world lead many away from a mature faith. Some love the world more than they love God’s Word.
Because the workers are few we continue to pray for more laborers. And even as we pray for more workers there is much harvest for us. There is a big percentage of the pie our role of service in the kingdom left for us to dig into. We do not have to fight off others for the cultivation of the harvest. There is plenty of fruitful work for us to pursue. Our leader and guide in doing this work is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ.
Listen again to Jesus’ reaction to the needs of the people: “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” In the New Testament this Greek word for compassion is only used of God. Only Jesus who is without sin can fully understand how lost and helpless we are without Him. Only with Christ as our Shepherd can we extend this compassion to others.
A shepherd leads and guides. Think of the great commission from Matthew chapter 28, the 11 disciples at that time, were called to make disciples of all nations by baptizing and teaching. The answer to the helpless condition of our world is the new life in Christ, and the teaching of God’s Word that comes with this new life. We tackle the unbelief and darkness of the world with one baptism at a time, one lesson of instruction at a time.
As we work in the harvest field and pray for laborers, we should always see that it is the LORD who brings the harvest. No matter how discouraged we may feel of the overall demographic decline of the church in America, we should never lose sight of how the Lord brings results with His Word.
A few weeks ago a heating and air conditioning serviceman came to my house to fix a part that was covered over warranty. Since I was returning from a funeral that day around the time he arrived, he asked me about what work I was doing that appeared to have worked up a sweat.
I told him how I was the officiant for the funeral and how I had the opportunity to share about the comfort in sorrow and the hope of the resurrection our Lord brings to those who mourn. Soon he told me that he had lost two close family members in the last year and how important support and compassion from the Lord’s church was to him in his time of grief. He commented on how God’s Word really works because he was never raised in the church, had little exposure to God’s Word and did not believe and now he is listening to a Bible app every morning. Through hearing the Word he has faith and he described how he is now experiencing that everything in the scripture holds true. The harvest in his life is just beginning. The Lord brings the harvest.
Our reading from Exodus chapter 19 helps us see how the harvest is all produced by the LORD. “You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.” Faith for the people of Israel was clear as sight, the LORD’s deliverance of them.
Israel was carried to salvation from Egypt as on wings of an eagle. Because they were carried in this way, they were put in a position to be God’s treasured possession among all the peoples. “and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”
The harvest is so great at the time of the book of Exodus that a whole nation stands before the world as a kingdom of priests. So plentiful the harvest is today that the church which is present in every country in the world shares the good news of the kingdom.
With verse 10 in our gospel reading we see a distinction between all of the disciples that followed Jesus and the particular 12 he sent out. We can easily overlook the importance of Jesus establishing twelve disciples. It is not just a symbolic honor to the twelve tribes of Israel that Jesus called 12 disciples. It is much more. Jesus is using the 12 disciples as a new creation for the world, a renewed faithfulness to the Lord which the twelve tribes of Israel failed to faithfully fulfill.
The twelve disciples were established by Jesus to show what it looks like when the twelve tribes of Israel are united and not at war with one another, when Israel is a people for God’s own possession. And when Jesus talks about praying for laborers in the mission field, he is praying for laborers who are converts of the 12 disciples for a common purpose in ministry, and the establishment of the pastoral office.
We as the church are the priesthood of all believers who are built on the foundation of Christ and the 12 Apostles. We are chosen for this calling. It is the Lord’s doing, He is the master gardener designer the beautiful and awe inspiring results. Amen.